


Evolution

by lethallyfreezingnewspaper



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Depressed Tony Stark, Gen, Hopeful Ending, I kinda just ignore Pepper, Irondad, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) is a Good Bro, Obsessive Behavior, Oneshot, Oops, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Self-Destructive Tendencies, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Self-Esteem Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Yes I really say Tony can beat cap & bucky, idk if I actually believe that or not oops, mr stark i don't feel so good, sorry about that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-27
Updated: 2019-03-27
Packaged: 2019-12-25 07:17:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18256421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lethallyfreezingnewspaper/pseuds/lethallyfreezingnewspaper
Summary: One of the first things Tony does when he gets back from Siberia is re-watch the footage of the fight. It’s painful, and fucking terrible for his mental health, but he watches it. Then watches it again, with a notepad in hand, which quickly becomes covered in frantic black scribbles.OR: That one about Tony using the footage from Siberia (and eventually Titan) to try & better the suits.





	Evolution

**Author's Note:**

> INSPIRED BY THIS POST: https://ironarm.tumblr.com/post/183632799419/tony-stark-evolution  
> I saw that post, immediately opened the notes app, and wrote this in like five minutes just to get it out of my brain. I'm not trying to be anti-Steve or whatever, this all kinda just happened. All typos are on me (as per usual). Sorry for ignoring Pepper. And also, I don't 100% believe that nano-teched up Tony could take on Cap & Bucky (but I also don't NOT believe it, you know), so don't come after me for that.

One of the first things Tony does when he gets back from Siberia is re-watch the footage of the fight. It’s painful and fucking terrible for his mindset, but he watches it. Then watches it again, with a notepad in hand, which quickly becomes covered in frantic black scribbles. What went wrong. How to prevent it. What went right _but not right enough_. How to be better.

Soon, he has every blow memorized, and that’s something his subconscious mind delights in. As he toils by day in the workshop adding more, more, always more, every night the dreams grow more vivid. Every night, he thinks _if I had only done this, said that, shot here, was faster, stronger, better._

And every night, it’s not good enough. He’s never faster, stronger, better. Every night, he wakes up just as Rogers looms over him, and stumbles to the workshop with Barnes skirting around the edge of his peripheral vision.

Once he starts working with nanotech, he stops having the dreams. Which makes sense, because he pretty much stops sleeping right around that point. He’s in the workshop 24/7, working, constantly working. He collapses every week or so from exhaustion. FRIDAY has strict instructions to wake him up after a couple of hours. She wakes him up, every time, because she’s not JARVIS. JARVIS is gone, dead, just a pile of jumbled, unretrievable code. Because of Tony.

The nanotech suit is insanely overpowered, enough so that Tony could take on Rogers and Barnes, hell, he could take on an army of Rogers and Barnes, without breaking a sweat. Every frame of that footage has been analysed and taken apart and put back together and everything on that fucking nanotech suit is perfect.

In the end, though, it’s still not enough. Tony still fails, still has to watch the one good thing in his life, the only person that can pull him away from his work, his tech, dissolve into nothing in his arms. And do you know what that beam of light, beacons of happiness does in his final moments? Apologizes. APOLOGIZES. To Tony, because Peter thought he was the one that wasn’t good enough, kind enough, smart enough. Why did he never understand that Tony was the letdown, the weak link in the chain? Tony was the one who had failed. Tony was the reason Peter crumbled into nothing.

Fuck that. Fuck Thanos.

If Tony was obsessive after Siberia, now he was unstoppable. Sure, he might be on a spaceship with no food, no water, and oxygen running out in forty-eight hours. But he has metal, and he has tools, and he knows, knows, that he cannot fail again.

The first thing he does is watch the footage from the fight on Titan.

He watches it again, and again, and again, and covers the walls of the spaceship with chicken-scratch notes and scribbled formulas.

Then, with shaking hands, an unsteady heartbeat, and a will stronger than iron, _because iron wasn’t good enough_ , he gets to work.

**Author's Note:**

> ummmm sorry about that... at least there's a hopeful ending? tell me if you see any problems (typos, grammer, etc.) and I'll fix them ASAP. 
> 
> Kudos, comments, any feedback is appreciated & loved!  
> Thanks for reading! :) Hope you enjoyed it.


End file.
